


Shake me up, find me the answer

by chocolateandmurder



Category: K.A.R.D (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Time Travel, Character Analysis, F/F, Fluff, This Is Why We Can't Have Nice Things, bseph r the best, mentions of depression
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-01
Updated: 2019-01-01
Packaged: 2019-10-01 19:52:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,463
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17250335
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chocolateandmurder/pseuds/chocolateandmurder
Summary: Jeon Jiwoo is perfectly fine, thank you very much. She's great at her college classes despite her terrible track record in some places and the fact that her sleep schedule has gone to hell, and she has great friends, even if Taehyung and Matthew are also the worst. She's great. Everything's great.Except for this one mysterious girl she keeps seeing everywhere, and might be completely in love with.





	Shake me up, find me the answer

**Author's Note:**

  * For [skiespjm](https://archiveofourown.org/users/skiespjm/gifts).



> I'm literally posting this at 2 am on the 1st of Jan yay go me. Anyway we all deserve a story of dumbass lesbian time travelling girlfriends and this is literally what its about. It's been more than a year since I wrote anything for KARD and I was really struggling with some stuff, so I'm glad I survived and I'm glad I have a ton of WIPS to post soon since I'm in a better headspace. I'm glad we all survived 2018. I'm glad I met @skiespjm .The title of the fic is taken from What by Dreamcatcher, which I listened to non stop when I wrote this lmao check out the lesbian rock queens if you had time
> 
> Update: fic has been betaed and spelling mistakes have been corrected

-

_Jeon Jiwoo is perfectly fine, thank you very much. She's great at her college classes despite her terrible track record in some places and the fact that her sleep schedule has gone to hell, and she has great friends, even if Taehyung and Matthew are also the worst. She's great. Everything's great._

_Except for this one mysterious girl she keeps seeing everywhere, and might be completely in love with._

-

The first time Jiwoo sees Somin, she's drunk out of her mind, and assumes Somin is just a Magical Sober Person.

(Kind of sucks that Somin turns out to be another kind of magical, but that's another thing entirely)

She's sitting on the floor at a house party and staring forlornly down the stairs. She's not sure exactly when, but Taehyung went down for something and she was planning to follow him except now her legs don’t work and she has to hold onto the carpet to make sure she doesn't fall into the sky. And she's not sure how yet, but this is completely, one hundred percent Taehyung's fault, and she's totally going to send him an angry text message about this. When she can finally let go of the carpet and take out her phone.

Then the door opens, and the most beautiful girl Jiwoo has ever seen in her life appears.

"Hello" says The Girl, and then Jiwoo really wishes she could let go of the carpet so she could text Taehyung about how beautiful this girl was and how she was probably an angel brought down to Earth to fix humanity's obsession with Drake or something.

"Hiiiiii" says Jiwoo, doing her best to smile charmingly and definitely failing.

"Hi do you know what year it is?" says Somin, which Jiwoo definitely would have flagged as something odd if she's even been the slightest bit less drunk.

"It's the present, baby" she says instead, trying to waggle her eyebrows, and then promptly feels like throwing up.

The Girl laughs a little in response to that. She's the same height as Jiwoo, but with lighter hair and front teeth that stick out when she laughs, dressed in a simple black shirt and black pants. She bends down slightly to slightly brush Jiwoo's hair, just the barest amount of pressure and Jiwoo feels herself go red. 

"Is there anyone I can call to take you home?" asks the girl.

Jiwoo has friends but right now her tongue doesn't really feel like its in her mouth, or that she's capable of producing sound. At exactly that moment though, Matthew comes running up the stairs, looking annoyingly perky and sober.

"Oh hello" he says to The Girl, which is wrong because the correct response clearly should be "Hello you are the most beautiful person in the world", but Jiwoo forgives him. "Thank you for keeping an eye on her, I'm going to take her home right now" he says, gesturing to Jiwoo on the floor.

The girl smiles again, so sweet and pretty and Jiwoo is ready to throw herself down on the floor and weep again. "It's no problem" she says, and pats Jiwoo's head one more time, smiling fondly, "get home safe, both of you" she adds.

Matthew nods happily and says "You get home safe as well" politely, before picking up Jiwoo like she's a rag doll and carrying her bridal style in his arms down the stairs. Jiwoo tries to protest but the girl seems to disappear when she peeks over Matthew's shoulder, and then she's too busy trying not to throw up.

*

The second time she sees Somin, she's not drunk, but she still looks terrible.

It's music theory. it's goddamn fucking MUSIC THEORY, that one stupid class that doesn't come to her naturally, or in fact doesn't come to her at all with the worst professor that she's always staying up late night and cramming for. Which is why she's alone in the library at midnight, bend over an upcoming assignment and surrounded by enough empty iced coffee cups for someone to stage an intervention.

So thank god that there isn't anyone in the library on a friday night. Or so she thinks.

"Hi" says a voice politely enough, but Jiwoo is running on just fumes, and jumps several feet in the air like a frightened rabbit.

Then she looks up and it's The Girl.

"Um hello? How are you?" she says. Distantly, she knows she has the worst dark circles and she's been absent mindedly chewing on her hair and there are stains all over her hoodie.

The Girl smiles sweetly again. Her hair is jet black now, glossy and healthy, which Jiwoo finds surprising, because it was a bleach blonde colour just a day ago. She's dressed for the summer too, in a pair of mom jeans and tank top, like it isn't eleven degrees outside. "I'm good. I'm Somin by the way"

"Jiwoo" says Jiwoo, and raises her hand to shake before she sees the huge iced coffee stain on her sleeve and then puts it down again like nothing happened.

The Girl-or Somin, since that's her name (Jiwoo tests it out in her head, the two syllables, So-Min, and thinks, slightly deliriously, but also completely seriously, that it's a very very pretty name for a very pretty girl), doesn't really say anything about her weird behaviour, but sits down opposite to her and smiles politely once more, fingers lacing together.

"Hey Jiwoo" she begins slightly hesitantly, "What year is it?"

Jiwoo narrows her eyes, confused and maybe slightly convinced that Somin is maybe always kind of drunk even if she looks completely sober for now. "It's 2018?" she replies, convinced that there's a punchline coming with this.

"Oh!" says Somin instead, looking genuinely surprised. "That's....close. I usually skip to much farther in the future"

"What" says Jiwoo.

Somin blushes slightly, and then tangles her fingers together anxiously. "I'm.....a time traveller" she says nervously, "it's a......it's a genetic thing......like every few months I just skip into the future or the past for a little while and then everything's the same for a while"

"What" repeats Jiwoo, like the title song of the 3rd mini album by Dreamcatcher, but also like a girl so tired she's on the verge of tears.

Because this is just her luck. It's just her luck that everything is falling apart for her this semester and that the one girl that she stupidly develops a crush on turns out to be convinced she has the gene to destroy physics or something. _God is a sadistic comedian with excellent timing_ , she thinks dramatically, _and Jiwoo is his piece de resistence_.

Her mom taught her to be polite, so even though her mom also told her not to be caught dead in public with coffee stains all over her clothes, she still says "I'm sorry, I'm very tired and I'll be heading home for now. It was nice seeing you again" and starts gathering her stuff.

"Jiwoo, wait-" says Somin, but Jiwoo pushes all her things into her tiny backpack with one smooth motion, and pointedly ignores the sound of six thousand highlighters crashing into each other, even though the sound makes Somin visibly flinch. "Have a good evening" she says, her voice like ice.

"Jiwoo, please wait" says Somin, leaping to her feet the same moment that Jiwoo hoists her back pack over her shoulder. They both really are about the same height. "I swear, I'm not playing a prank on you or whatever."

"I'm sure you aren't" murmurs Jiwoo, mostly to distract herself from the way acid reflux is making her want to groan out loud.

"I swear, I can even take a polygraph test on this or whatever, I'm-I genuinely just skip to a different time sometimes for whatever reason, and then after a few hours, I go back. I don't, I don't know how much time has passed since we've seen each other, but considering that it's still winter, don't you think it's odd that my hair colour changed? That my clothes are so different from what everyone else wears?"

Jiwoo wants to cry.

It has nothing to do with the conversation whatsoever. It's just that she feels sick, and she still hasn't made enough progress on her class, and this entire conversation is just somehow feeding into her fear of not being good enough to grasp something fundamental. She sits down again, and hopes that Somin can't see how defeated the slump of her shoulders are. "Yeah, you're right, your hair is super fucking weird" she says.

Somin gives a defensive shrug. "The blonde still looks good on me okay" she says. Jiwoo is inclined to sort of agree, but Somin continues. "Usually" begins Somin, and then hesitates again, "usually, after I see a particular time and place, I skip something like ten, twenty years ahead. It's not usually, like-"

"-one week" interrupts Jiwoo, beginning to put the pieces together, "I saw you exactly one week ago"

"Oh" says Somin.

"Is there-is it like, for a reason? Like why you get to appear in some times?" asks Jiwoo cautiously.

Somin chews her lip, her eyes faraway. "Not, not really" she says. Jiwoo sees something move out of the corner of her eye and realises its one of her highlighters she must have shoved too hard, rolling on the floor. 

“What do you think it could be?” she asks, bending down to pick it up. 

When she straightens up, Somin is gone, like she was never there. 

*

Text from absolute fucking dumbass <3: yo dude you will not believe what I just saw

Jeonjiwoo: fucking try me

Absolute fucking dumbass <3: some dentistry student is walking around campus with a duck on a leash. 

Absolute fucking dumbass <3: i had no idea that a degree in dentistry could drive you to insanity

Jeonjiwoo: hey u wanna know what I just saw?

Absolute fucking dumbass <3: askfskfhs what

Jeonjiwoo: the same cute girl Matthew and I bumped into at the party

Jeonjiwoo: except she’s a time traveller, and keeps randomly appearing and disappearing from this time.

Absolute fucking dumbass <3: wow

Absolute fucking dumbass <3: I had no idea a degree in sound engineering could make you crazy too

Absolute fucking dumbass <3: be careful kids

Jeonjiwoo: fuck you. Seriously. Fuck you Taehyung. 

*

“Can you control when you do the disappearing thing?” says Jiwoo, out of breath from running to the door the moment she saw Somin standing outside her accomodation and squinting in the sunlight. 

“What?” says Somin, looking confused as Jiwoo grabs her hand and leads her to her tiny dorm room. Her hair is a softer brown now, and she’s dressed in a comfy t shirt with fishnet sleeves. She looks hot, but then again she always looks hot, and her wrist is dainty and delicate in Jiwoo’s hands, but also! Jiwoo has no time to be distracted. 

“The boys think I’m making you up, so if you can control when you do the disappearing thing, then I can prove that you’re actually a time traveller”explains Jiwoo, in between running up the stairs. 

“The boys? Like The Boyz?” asks Somin as Jiwoo kicks the door open and says “HA” pointing angrily at Taehyung. 

“Hello, I’m Somin” says Somin politely. Taehyung looks vaguely terrified under the face mask he’d just decided to try on before Somin appeared. 

Matthew looks up from his phone which he was busy scrolling through and ignoring Jiwoo and Taehyung’s 3495839th fight. “Oh hi! We met at the party, I think?” he says, getting up to shake her hand. 

“Yes, yes we did. What year is it?” asks Somin, and Jiwoo figures that a) being polite and b) asking for the year is just a Time Travelling Thing. 

“It’s 2018” says Taehyung, still slightly shocked. A bit of his face mask drips off, but he doesn’t seem to notice. 

“Somin is a TIME TRAVELLER, and she’s also the GIRL I TOLD YOU ABOUT, and you guys will believe me when I say she’s real, right?” says Jiwoo, looking around desperately and kind of frantically, “I mean, Somin, can you stay until you disappear?”

“Actually” says Somin hesitantly, “Maybe not so much, um, it’s like….it’s part of what happens to my family, but if you don’t mind can I stay as long as possible? Until I disappear, obviously” 

“Oh you disappear?” ask Matthew, clearly having previously assumed that Jiwoo really was playing an elaborate joke, and now looking very worried. 

Somin took a deep breath, and swung back and forth on the balls of her feet, with the air of a middle schooler about to make a speech. 

_Cute,_ Jiwoo’s brain provides, _this funny little person with a soft smile and a penchant for odd appearances is actually kind of earnest and awkward-_ but she immediately shuts it off. 

“My family come from a line of time travellers…..if you can call it that? In our twenties, we can suddenly jump to either the future or the past. It’s kind of random to be honest. And we can stay in the past or the future for like a few minutes, or hours at most, but when it’s done we just jump back to where we are before” explains Somin, sounding slightly nervous. 

“So you can just….go to the future?” says Taehyung, voice weirdly strained. 

“Um I’m actually...from the future. Uh, but not much?” says Somin nervously, fiddling with her sleeves. 

“You’re from the future” said Taehyung, looking even more terrified. 

“But not much” repeats Matthew, looking only slightly less terrifiedterrfied.

A bit more of his face mask falls off and drips onto his pant leg. Jiwoo and Somin eyes both follow it, but he doesn’t seem to notice either. 

“Not that far off. Just by two years” says Somin nervously. “I-uh-I jumped back two years I mean. I’m from 2020. It’s not too different or anything”

“Is Donald Trump still president?” asks Jiwoo

“No, he’s-” starts Somin and then, mid-blink, she’s gone. 

*

Everything was fine after that for a week (if you call Taehyung shrieking like a frightened animal and crawling into Matthew’s lap so that the other boy ended up carrying him bridal style “normal” which Jiwoo kind of didn’t but it did give her great blackmail pictures). All of them went to class and then crashed in their respective dorms, frantically studying until late hours of the night. They went to one house party which both Taehyung and Jiwoo got super sloshed, as usual, and Matthew was the smiling gentleman who drove them both home, as usual. They played one game of scrabble where Taehyung got way too competitive and won by more than a 100 points, and both Jiwoo and Matthew had an existential crisis about spelling and started frantically googling realistic looking words on their phones, as usual. 

It was Saturday evening, when they’d commandeered a small music studio in their college for cheap, knowing that the rest of the student body was out partying, that Somin appeared again. 

It had been four hours since they’d started recording and the song BM was working on-an original for his soundcloud-was basically done. Chinese take out boxes littered the room, and as always, the stress of music production had turned them all a little crazy after hearing the same tune over and over again. Right now, Taehyung was blasting the instrumental they put together for the track with Jiwoo by his side and Matthew was in the booth. Instead of rapping the lyrics they’d written though, he was screaming the chorus to Dreamcatcher’s “What” and twerking along with the beat, which basically meant he was just repeating the same word while twerking at the same time. 

“LOOK! AT! HIM! GO!” screamed Taehyung, getting up and tearing off his jacket. 

“I cannot BELIEVE you’re about to do this” says Jiwoo, in between laughing so hard tears were falling down her face.

“IT’S LITTY” screamed Matthew, pointing at Taehyung. 

“WHAT WHAT WHAT” screamed the two of them in unison, twerking together, only separated by the glass. 

“What?” says Somin behind her. 

All of them turn around, two in mid twerk, to see Somin standing there looking confused. 

“Uh, hi” said Jiwoo awkwardly. 

Taehyung fell off the chair. 

Somin ran forward to help him while Jiwoo felt frozen for a second, staring at the scene like this was a very strange movie playing out in front of her. Then, she shrieked herself when she realised what a weirdo she must look like and jumped off the chair hastily to drag Taehyung back to standing position. 

Ten minutes later, the recording booth lights had been turned off, and both the boys and Jiwoo were standing upright, on the floor, not twerking, as god intended, while Somin smiled politely and greeted them all like normal adults who definitely hadn’t been caught in a bizarre position. 

(Distantly, as Somin says “It’s nice to see you, Jiwoo” and Jiwoo automatically replies “you too” in the back of her mind she realises time travel must mean meeting people in the oddest situations- she can’t imagine the number of odd makeouts or fights that Somin must have interrupted, and then she suddenly realises with an abstract sense of horror that all the times Somin has seen her she’s either been inebriated, exhausted to the point of insanity, or willingly hanging out with crazy men. She almost starts apologizing, but that won’t help her sanity case, so she visibly stops herself, which Somin notices, and then leaves her flushed. Or atleast, more flushed than she usually is around Somin)

“Can I listen to the song you guys are making? If that’s okay?” asks Somin after the mood has gone more or less back to normal. It said so politely, gently, though, like she knows how difficult it is to show people something you’ve created personally. It makes Jiwoo think of all the things she doesn’t know about Somin, thanks to how little they actually can see each other. 

Matthew grows visibly shyer when asked, and Jiwoo tries not to get soft over the visual of a muscled, six feet man blushing and staring at his feet, though Taehyung clearly isn’t even trying, reaching out and running his hands through Matthew’s exposed hair. “It isn’t-it isn’t very good” says Matthew nervously, “I think there are still some things that I need to sort out, but-” 

“It’s very good” interrupts Jiwoo. 

“Really, its amazing” adds on Taehyung. 

Matthew can’t handle being in the room when someone listens to his work, so he leaves to grab some more drinks from the vending machine on the floor down below, and Taehyung discretely throws away some of the trash from the take out while Somin makes herself comfortable in the seat next to Jiwoo. 

“You ready?” says Taehyung to no one in particular.

“Yep” says Somin.

He hits play and the song they’ve all been working painstakingly on over the past few hours blasts over the speakers. In the dark of the studio, Jiwoo can hear every single detail they agonised over, all the bits that Matthew was sure about, his confident, structured rap delivering the pain in the lyrics, and all the parts they were sure could be improved, discordant sounds they would have loved to replace if they had any idea how, all packed into a simple three minutes. _Music was such a strange labour of love_ , thought Jiwoo absently, watching Somin listen to the song, the other girl’s hands clasped in front of her face, eyes shining and a soft smile on her face. There was so much heartache that went into so little _time_. 

When the song ends, something about the music is still lingering in the air. Taehyung clears his throat awkwardly, almost like he’s carrying the nervousness that Matthew’s no doubt going to feel at this very moment, but Jiwoo can see the smile on her lips growing, the interplay of shadows and light in the recording studio making its way across her face, highlighting the soft curve of her cheek. 

“It’s beautiful” says Somin, looking so genuinely happy Jiwoo’s heart does a somersault, “I can see how hard you worked at it. I really love it. I’m sure lots of other people love it too”

Taehyung smiles-and listen, Jiwoo will make fun of Taehyung for as long as she’s alive, but privately she has to admit he’s the most handsome person she’s ever seen, and when he smiles like that, with genuine joy, she feels so intensely protective and happy-and jumps to his feet. “I’m going to tell Matthew” he says, beaming as he runs out of the room. 

Jiwoo feels her heart pound as she suddenly realises she’s alone with Somin again. “They have this weird thing” she says, just for the sake of saying something, gesturing towards the door Taehyung left through, “they’re both very different people but when it comes to music its like they share one brain cell” 

“Do you also study music?” asks Somin, sitting up in her chair, knees pulled to her chest. She looked small and cute, which made no sense considering they were the same height, but Jiwoo’s stupid brain wouldn’t shut up. 

“I do sound engineering. I want to branch out, you know? Work in the music industry. I met Matthew and Taehyung a few years ago before we started college, and both of them want to make their original music, so they let me hang out and work with them when we’re producing” rambles Jiwoo, unable to make eye contact. It'sIts just that she’s embarrassingly aware of Somin’s gaze, the way the light reflecting off of Somin’s eyes made them look impossibly bright, and how it was all squared onto her. 

“It sounds like alot of fun, even if it can be stressful” says Somin. 

“Yeah!” says Jiwoo too enthusiastically, “it is, it really is. I mean-” her cheeks colour when she suddenly remembers all the mistakes that she’s made, how poorly mixed some parts of the song were, “I mean, I still have alot to learn, obviously, and music theory sucks balls, but I think, like-” 

Somin reaches out and intertwines her hands in Jiwoo’s. Her heart skips a beat at the sudden awareness about how close they are now, about how she can smell Somin’s perfume and feel the heat emanating off her skin, about how she’s in direct line of sight now. 

“It’s beautiful” Somin whispers, and Jiwoo couldn’t break eye contact if she tried. It almost sounds like she isn’t talking about the song anymore.

*

The next time she sees Somin, it’s a few days later when Jiwoo is out on a jog in the park near her student dorm. She’s almost secretly pleased about that, because she almost never ever exercises, but now she can look responsible and fit near the hot girl, she thinks, as Somin spots her and her face breaks out in a smile. 

“Want to jog together?” asks Somin, tying up her fading bleach blonde hair in a ponytail. 

“Wait what?” says Jiwoo. She’d internally practiced looking attractively exerted, like slightly out of breath enough to show she’d exercised but not sweaty enough to smell. She hadn’t expected Somin to suggest exercising, out of her own free will. 

“I love going to the gym” says Somin smiling again, her cheeks puffing up in the most adorable way. “And eating healthy. Do you?”

Jiwoo thinks about the four burgers and five coffees she had yesterday. “Oh yeah totally” she says. 

In retrospect, the whole thing was doomed from the start. Somin jogs ahead in practiced steps, never even once running out of breath while Jiwoo stars hyperventilating ten minutes into their run. They pass the more crowded jogging paths, full of freshmen in designer sweat pants (which Jiwoo will never ever understand and hates them for) and onto an abandoned side road, with nothing but tall, towering trees to keep them company. Somin stops midway and bursts into laughter as she turns out around and finds Jiwoo bend over, holding her stomach and taking deep breaths with the same frenzy as someone who’d been drowning. 

“You jerk” says Jiwoo as she realises what’s going on. “You asshole. You totally knew I don’t jog” 

Somin laughs, her rabbity front teeth flashing and her gums showing. Even her ungraceful, full bodied laugh is pretty. “No offense but you have terrible posture, it tipped me off immediately” she says. Then she steps forward a little bit and places her hand gently on Jiwoo’s head, the same way she did back when they first met. “Do you want to sit down and rest for a little bit?” she asks, her eyes slightly more sympathetic than it was a second before. Jiwoo notices yet again, and equally uselessly, that Somin has very pretty eyes. 

They end up in the park a few metres away, with pond and some incredibly bad tempered ducks. Somin buys popsicles from the CVS nearby and they sit on the swings, enjoying the taste of the ice after their exercise and talking about nothing in particular. Somin laughs uproariously again twice during that conversation, Jiwoo notes and files away to remember for later, thinking about it makes her feel warm all over. 

Somin likes talking. She tells her all about going thrifting (which is why all her clothes don’t look out of place, Jiwoo realises offhand), hunting through pawn shops, and her baby nieceneice (Somin shows her photos on her phone. Jiwoo later thinks about how it’s funny she gets more excited about seeing her photos than she does about the phone itself; some sort of strange, paper thin iPhone that probably dies within twenty minutes anyway)

An hour after they’ve finished their popsicles, Somin gets up to throw away the wrappers. She never comes back. Jiwoo gets up and goes home, trying not to think too much about how this is what it’ll probably always be like. 

*

The next time Somin appears, its in a vintage store Jiwoo has dragged the boys to. They hate shopping and are instead filming dumb snapchat videos behind her, but she ignores them while she hunts through a rack of old animal print clothes, trying to find a nice coat for the upcoming cold weather. 

She pushes a bunch of coats apart, and suddenly Somin is just. There. 

“What the FUCK?” she says, nearly jumping out of her skin. 

Somin is giggling again. “I got here ten minutes ago” she says, “and I realised none of you noticed me”

“Well” says Jiwoo, trying to calm down her racing heart, ‘good job on fucking scaring the life out of me”. 

Somin glances over at the boys who are now dabbing einthusiastically for the camera. “I think we’re the same size. Wanna prank them instead now?” 

 

“Guys I mean it, when I come out, please give me your honest opinions on whether it looks good on me” says Jiwoo, holding the clothes she’s planning to try on. 

Matthew looks slightly worriedly at Jiwoo’s animal print hat, her animal print coat, animal print skirt and animal print shoes. Taehyung on the other hand looks like he’s ten minutes away from bursting into laughter. 

“I’ll take a picture when you come out of the changing room so you know how you look” says Taehyung faux helpfully, already holding up his phone. He’s so comically amused Jiwoo can already see the shit eating grin beginning to form as she shuts the changing room curtain behind her. 

“Alright!” she announces a few minutes later, “I’m coming out! Tell me what you think!’

“Oh we will” promised Taehyung from behind the curtain, already beginning to giggle. 

 

The curtains swung back, and there stood Somin with the most innocent look on her face. 

“Guys’ she said earnestly, adjusting her leopard print hat while the boys just stared at her, forgetting to make fun of her outfit, “does it look good on me? Do you think I should wear it to class?” 

There was a few minutes of utter silence and then Taehyung made a funny sound that seemed both like he had too much air and also like he didn’t have enough hair at the same time while Matthew doubled down laughing. 

“And that’s what you get for not paying attention while I shop, you hoes” yelled Jiwoo, appearing from behind Somin and pointing at all of them dramatically. 

The shop owner then shushed them loudly and told them to ether buy something or leave. Jiwoo bought the animal print hat for Somin as a joke while everyone ribbed Taehyung into buying them ice cream. They sat outside the shop licking their cones and just as Jiwoo was thinking about the last time Somin and her shared ice cream together, the other girl slid closer to her and put a hand on her knee. 

*

She sees Somin the next day itself, and its the first time Somin seems to choose to be alone with Jiwoo instead of hanging out with the boys. 

Jiwoo likes to tease Taehyung about how he acts around Somin sometimes-nice and polite but also weirdly terrified and jumpy over her time travelling thing-except when that's just to obscure the way her heart does its little dance everytime she sees the other girl, the way she's so thrilled whenever Somin appears around her, even though it's much more common these days.

The two of decide to walk to the little park near her college, this time further away from the even more bad tempered than usual ducks, midday, its abandoned except for the occasional person out on a job. They wander aimlessly between the tall trees, ducking in and out, while Jiwoo takes the oppurtunity to tell her more about her classes, since little has happened since yesterday.

It's also, as Jiwoo realises, a chance to actually ask Somin questions about her time travel thing.

"Does everyone in your family experience the time travelling thing?" she asks as Somin kicks a few rocks like a kid.

"Just the women" says Somin and hesistates slightly, "its like-my grandmother talks in riddles basically while my mom is more chill, so I'm honestly not sure, but she says that it's part magic and part genetics. Something about turning twenty two sets it off, and then for the next ten years girls in the family just jump back forth. It you jump from one place to the next, then the place you started from doesn't change without you. It's like being able to stop time"

"How long do they last?" asks Jiwoo curiously, watching Somin stop to admire a few purple flowers, smelling sweetly of nectar.

"The duration from the first time I jump to the next time I jump is supposed to be ten years exactly" answers Somin easily and then hesitates before continuing. "When I jump though- I honestly don't know. My sister-she only stays in each place for a few minutes. For her jumping is just an inconvenience. My grandmother once told me the story of an aunt who stayed in other places for days and days, even jumped into a new timeline and then into a newer timeline one after the other. For me its just a few hours"

They've wandered far enough that the forest is quiet, no sound of soft footsteps, no animals, not even other people taking a stroll. There's leaves in Somin's soft brown hair; Jiwoo resists the urge to brush them out, and stares at the moss growing on the tree opposite instead.

"What if you met yourself in the future?" she asks. It always seemed to be the ultimate lynchpin of all the science fiction movies-meeting oneself. Jiwoo wonders absent mindedly if she would ever choose to meet herself and thinks about two people cringing in embarassment when she remembers how she's gone from struggling in one class to struggling in all them.

She's too busy being hit with the bout of anxiety over college to realise that Somin has stepped closer, the soft moss below them hiding the sound of her footsteps. She turns around to see her same soft, gummy smile so much closer than before. "Here" says the other girl, and pulls out of a leaf that Jiwoo didn't even know was in her hair. "Its not too bad" she says, not stepping away even though there's no need for them to be so close. "But I've been told that it feels really strange. Meeting the future version of yourself means that you never know what's going to happen"

A sudden thought strikes Jiwoo. "Wait what if you met a future version of me?" she asks, "is that why you keep, i don't know, coming back to see me? Do I do something in the future I should be concerned about?" She feels so amxious about it even though she doesn't know why. She doesn't like to think about what might have done in two years time.

Somin laughs lightly at her panic and throws an arm around her before pinching her on the cheek. "No silly, I just pop up in random places. This isn't some science fiction story, though-" her brow furrows slightly "I actually don't know why I keep coming here. Usually I meet new people every time"

"Do you not want to be here?" blurts out Jiwoo before stopping herself.

Somin intertwines her hand in Jiwoo's. "I love being here" she says simply.

Jiwoo looks at their intertwined hands and looks up at Somin's side profile, taking in every tiny detail like the soft hairs on the side of her face and it suddenly strikes her that she spends so much just looking at Somin, like she's a piece of art, a photograph who's face haunts her, a fairytale instead of a real girl who comes by every few days and actually wants to spend time with her doing nothing at all. This time, when they walk home, Somin doesn't just disappear. Instead, she ruffles Jiwoo's hair. "I have to go now" she says, "but don't worry I'll be back" she promises before she fades away.

Jiwoo swallows down whatever emotion is suddenly rising up in her and goes back to her dorm. She has another essay to work on

*

The next time Somin comes over, Jiwoo doesn’t get the chance to agonise too much because it’s obvious from her puffy eyes that something’s upset her. 

“It’s been a day” she says automatically when she sees the other girl and Somin’s eyes widen slightly in surprise before she sniffs and rubs her nose. “It’s been a day in my time too” she explains. “It’s weird, our timelines are getting closer and closer even though its 2020 in my time”

 _Its almost like we’re just normal friends_ thinks Jiwoo and then immediately stops herself, not wanting to indulge in more wishful thinking. She’s been doing that alot lately when she’s supposed to be studying, spacing out, caffienated but still tired and staring at her textbooks and wishing that things could be better. She’s knows Matthew looks at her with concern sometimes, and Taehyung’s been even more naggy as usual

*

Somin comes everyday for a week after that. She arrives at the same time in the morning too, so it becomes routine for Jiwoo to throw on a bit on makeup and actually make it to her morning classes, even if all she does is fall asleep in the back row and wake up with a pounding headache. They all grab coffee together and Jiwoo gets to wipe off whipped cream Somin’s gets on her face, which obviously means her mind gets stuck in the gutter and can’t make eye contact after that. 

At the end of the week, Jiwoo and Somin are walking back to her dorm together, and Jiwoo feels weirdly nervous. She knows nothing will happen _ever_ because she’s too much and not enough at the same time, and she can’t stop thinking about that but there’s some kind of implication behind holding Somin’s hand and leading her to her room that she can’t stop thinking about. 

Somin is dressed nicer than usual with a black blouse and shorts, and her nails match the exact shade. She seems nervous, like she’s going to tell Jiwoo something important. It makes it hard for her to breathe. 

She leads Somin to the room and sits on her bed while the other girl stands, fidgeting nervously. “I have something to tell you about my time travelling thing” she begins, “and about what happens when I stop jumping back and forth. Um so it concerns memory? Memory is a really complicated thing you know so-”

She disappears mid sentence. 

*

Somin doesn’t come back. 

Jiwoo crashes. 

It’s not Somin’s fault. It’s not Jiwoo’s fault either, though sometimes she lies awake in the night and thinks about who gets the blame in this scenario, if anyone does, all those combinations of fucked up genes and fucked up childhood and years and years of self destructive habits that she hasn’t quite learned to get out of. She thinks about floating, about falling, about how everything is in reach but also impossibly far away, about how much she’s craving, aching to give up but she can’t because as much her illness tells her otherwise, there are people who’d miss her if she was gone. She thinks and doesn’t think, everything too much as she lies in bed one fine Monday morning, too deep in a depressive episode to even think of getting up, let alone making it to music theory class. 

The boys know not to push her by now. She really doesn’t deserve them. Matthew comes and visits her during his lunch break (which makes her feel awful, the idea that he’d interrupt his job at the music shop and run all the way down to her shitty student housing just to check in on her, but he doesn’t show any sign of strain and she doesn’t say anything just in case it leads to more fighting), and the two of them share sandwiches he made himself while he putters around, washing the dishes and wiping down the counter tops, knowing, without asking, that she’s not the in the mood to talk. Taehyung lets himself with the spare key while Jiwoo is lying in bed, pretedning to sleep, and leaves the notes from the classes she’s missed on the table for her. Then, he leans down and gives her forehead a soft kiss, wrapping the blanket tighter around her. 

Jiwoo cries silently after he goes, lonely and sick and forced to go on anyway. 

*

Somin appears two days after that, after a whole month of absence, except this time she’s dressed exactly like she was the moment she disappeared, right down to her earrings the misplaced strands of her. 

“Jiwoo!” she shouts excitedly the moment she vapourises in the bedroom, arms braced like she was just in the middle of talking. It would be funny under any other cirumstances, if it wasn’t for the fact that her face immediately falls when she sees Jiwoo curled up in bed, miserable. 

“It’s been a month” says Jiwoo automatically, too used to Somin asking. 

Somin just looks more confused. 

“I just saw you a minute ago” says Somin, looking like she’s too shocked to move, “and I was trying to will myself back into seeing you again, and then I suddenly jumped again. I thought...I thought it was just a few minutes in your time as well”

_Oh_

“Oh”

They both look at each other and Jiwoo can tell Somin is struggling to decide what to say, so Jiwoo just gets up instead, because she’s learned the hard way that no matter how much someone loves you they’ll probably never know the right thing to say the first time. 

“Take me to the park you told me about” she says. 

She’s had her cycle of moping. Time to get her life back in order. 

Both of them are being idiots, risking the whole trip when Somin could disappear any moment and accidentally leave Jiwoo stranded but they catch the bus anyway, and settle down in the back seats for the two hour journey. Jiwoo lends Somin her coat when she realises the poor girl is shivering in the autumn wind, and in turn Somin siddles close up her and rests her head on her shoulder when they’re both in the bus, watching the city disappear behind them to be replaced by rolling fields. 

“Shall I get you an ice cream when we reach the park?” says Somin softly, one hand covering Jiwoo’s, her thumb gently stroking the skin. Jiwoo turns around, and her head hurts in the kind of way in which being alive is too much and she knows for a fact that she’s not appreciating this moment as enough as she should, so she nods, and lets Somin’s warmth make her feel better. 

It’s a perfect day. Somin buys Jiwoo ice cream and after they finish that they both go to a tiny cafe bursting to the brim with succulents and green things and have one the best soups Jiwoo’s ever tasted in her life. They walk for hours both of them, with no real purpose, in between trees that are turning golden and orange and deep red, catch leaves with their hands as they make endless pirouttes in the wind, just like dancing. Somin doesn’t let go of her hand even when they’ve long since stopped walking, settling comfortably in a bench side by side, and the fog in Jiwoo’s brain hasn’t exactly lifted but there’s a part of her that feels a little bit healed. 

“Did you figure out why you keep seeing me?” she asks Somin after both of them have spent the last ten minutes in comfortable silence, just watching a landscape that will clearly outlast them in the best kind of way. 

Somin nods. “I think” she says, hesitating slightly, “nows not the best time to tell you though”

Jiwoo accepts that. She always knew she was going to be fine, but she remembers again after a day of tenderness. 

It’s going to be okay. 

*

"Whats the future like?" asks Jiwoo in the taxi back home. 

"What?" asks Somin over the pouring rain. It pounds against the window of the car, muffling the whole world outside. 

"You said you skip like twenty years into the future, what's that like?"

"It's..." says Somin, chewing her lip thoughtful, thinking hard. Cute, thinks Jiwoo automatically and lets herself think it for a change. "It's always scary" says Somin in response after a little while, “because I’ve always thought they’d be a moment when everything would become unrecognisable. Like I’d open my eyes after jumping and it would be like a science fiction movie where everything would have gotten worse than we could have imagined, and people would be far lonelier and they’d be way less of us and maybe it would kind of seem like all the technology we built kind of swallowed us whole”

“And?” says Jiwoo. 

“And I can never tell if I’m right” says Somin with a wry smile. 

“I’m never in the future long enough to confirm that” she continues, “Often its just half an hour, or a single interaction with a stranger, and the most I find out is that there’s a new type of technology that I’ve never seen before. One time I woke up in a robot factory of some sort, and there were all these human size robots around that were so realistic that I tried to make conversation with them before I realised that was a bad idea. I woke up in a mall in Japan and this school girl had to teach me how to use the sink in the bathroom because it was all so complicated. One time I woke up on the pavement somewhere and the sky was lit up in purple, like we’d started living in the clouds as well as the ground. Each time though-” she hesitates and then reaches forward, gently brushing Jiwoo’s hair back behind her ear. “Each time there was someone who helped me, and that kind of makes me hope a little” 

Jiwoo looks at her, all lit up in the smudged street lights outside and leaning against the door of the car like she was solid and would always exist here, like she wasn’t some strange magical girl that was going to disappear at any given time, and she decides something: if Somin ever comes back, she’s going to kiss her. 

*

“Jiwoo” whispers Somin, in the dead of the night in her bedroom.

Jiwoo looks up from where she’d been been idly scrolling through her phone before going to sleep, and to her shock Somin is there, in front of her, and scrambling onto her bed urgently, like she’d tripped and fallen face forward into it. 

She looks like a mess, in the kind of way that Jiwoo would have looked the first few weeks of knowing her. Her hair is jet black, falling all over her shoulders in a messy bundle, her lip stick appears to be smudged onto the back of her hand, and when she lifts her leg Jiwoo realises she’s just wearing a pair of cotton shorts and a thin sleeveless T shirt and she’s missing a shoe. 

She’s wearing pink lacy socks underneath her shoes. Jiwoo has just a second to register that before Somin is climbing onto her lap, warm and real and there and undeniably sexy, with a kind of urgency that she’s never seen before. 

“Jiwoo” says Somin hoarsely, cupping Jiwoo’s face in her hands, looking panicked. “Jiwoo, I have just a second, and then-then you’re going to hate me forever maybe, but I need-Jiwoo-I-”

“Its okay, babe, tell me what you need” says Jiwoo automatically, her fingers wrapping themselves around Somin’s wrists. The other girl is so cold she’s almost shaking. 

“The time travelling, the time jumping thing, the-” starts Somin, and then gives swallows, “I told you that everyone in my family time travels atleast once for ten years right?” 

“Yeah” said Jiwoo,pulling her closer automatically and trying to warm her up. 

“Well its like...it’s like there’s no real reason to obviously, okay? My grandmother just says its supposed to teach us to be a better person. Except that no one in my family has ever seen the same person so many times, and then there’s never been moments where they could sort of control it, so I spent the whole MONTH researching everything I could find and-and-and-”

“Deep breaths” reminds Jiwoo, carding her fingers into Somin’s hair. 

“It says-” Somin takes a deep breath and closes her eyes. She’s so close Jiwoo can see how her eyelashes flutter, the tiny, minute pimples on her forehead. “It says that there are stories about time travellers falling in love, and time aligns for them” 

Jiwoo feels like the air has been knocked out of her lungs. 

‘NOT that I’m saying you’re-you’re in love with me or that you have to suddenly date me or-I mean I’m literally not around half the time so all in all I don’t really sound like a good girlfriend but-”

Jiwoo kisses her. 

Its so messy, and so loving. She pulls Somin closer, lets her collapse against her body, and then just kisses her deep and slow, and Somin makes a desperate noise and kisses back, still cradling Jiwoo’s face. They break apart for air, and then Somin initiates the kiss, crashing their mouths together again. 

“If you remember me” says Somin hurriedly, “because most people forget me after a few weeks. Its a time travelling thing I don’t know why I don’t understand it and its sad to think about so I don’t talk about it but if you can remember me long enough, then the version of me in the present will remember you. We can date like normal girlfriends and I’ll be with you as long as you want me Jiwoo you don’t have to but please-I like you so much-”

Jiwoo pulls her closer and kisses her again, runs her hands all over her body and Somin gasps into her neck. Everything is a rush of pleasure and desperation after that, messy and raw and honest, and when Jiwoo wakes up alone the next morning she’s sure she’ll never forget that.

*

The next time Jiwoo sees Somin, she’s at a picnic that all the boys have planned a week after their exams. Jiwoo’s most likely failed her music theory class, but she’s not going to think about it now. The weather has been good for a while, and because of that she’s going to just enjoy herself with all the people she loves. She might have to redo a year of college, but it doesn’t matter. Life goes on. It’s not the worst thing that could happen. 

They’re all lying in the grass in the bright sun shine, enjoying the sensation of warmth. Taehyung and Matthew are lying a little two close for casual friends and Jiwoo is happy for them. They’ve split a bunch of fruits and sandwiches between them, and Jiwoo is about to crack open another bottle of juice when she looks up and realises that someone is running to them. 

“Jiwoo” screams Somin, dashing from the other end of the park. Her hair is pitch dark now, shining in the sunlight, and her face is glowing somehow. “Jiwoo I’m here” she screams even though Jiwoo can see her and they’re both smiling so brightly it hurts. 

She stops and then skids, collides with Jiwoo’s body, and Jiwoo just pulls her closer. She realises with a shock that Somin is her age, and when they pull apart there’s something about her that feels younger and softer and she thinks about how lucky she is to be able to fall in love with the same person twice over. 

“I remember you” says Somin, smiling her gummy smile, “I mean its the opposite of remembering you, but I like you alot Jiwoo and if it isn’t too strange or anything, I’d like to know you better”

“Well, my life can get kind of strange too” replies Jiwoo, thinking about all the things that suddenly become difficult for her, the bits of her past that are always hard to talk about, “but I’d like to get to know you better to”

They kiss, in the middle of the park with the boys hooting with joy in the summer heat, and its as magical as Jiwoo dreamed about. 


End file.
